I would like to comment on both the temporal and neuroanatomical aspects of the case of crying spells as symptoms of a transient ischaemic attack (TIA), presumed to involve the right capsular-thalamic region, recently reported by Mendez and Bronstein.1

As the authors point out, laughter preceding a cerebrovascular event involving the pontine, capsular-thalamic, or lenticular-caudate regions (“le fou rire prodromique”) is a rare but well recognised phenomenon, first described almost a century ago. However, they do …